They are the most enduring band in rock ‘n’ roll – recording, touring and warring with each other for over 40 years. Now, in an astounding new book, “According to the Rolling Stones” (Chronicle Books, $40) Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts (who served as consulting editor) tell all – from their modest beginnings as a cover band in the south of England to the debaucherous life they loved to their feelings about the band, music and each other.

Their own oral history is bolstered by commentary from industry execs like Ahmet Ertugen to scenesters like photographer David Bailey. And if you thought there was nothing that could surprise you about the world’s most famous bad boys, think again – the book is studded with photos from the band’s family albums.

Keith: There’s nothing like 3,000 chicks throwing them selves at you to turn a guy’s head, especially that randy lot I work with . . . We just had our tongues hanging out and would take any old slag down the coal hole for a quick one before we go on. Terrible stuff really, but fun times.

Charlie: I loved playing with Keith and the band – I still do – but I wasn’t interested in being a pop idol, sitting there with girls screaming. It’s not the world I come from. It’s not what I wanted to be and I still think it’s silly . . . America was a joke when we arrived, but by the time we left we had an audience and by the time we came back we had a hit record there.

Ronnie: People used to read their own thing into each member . . . Mick was the hard-to-get-at lead vocalist. Brian [Jones] was even more mysterious, and that’s what made the audiences keep coming back, to find out a bit more . . . There was so much general craziness and pandemonium that surrounded them, the shows never lasted long; it was always quite a feat to see more than two songs being played.

David Bailey [photographer]: The establishment also helped enhance the Stones’ image. The biggest mistake the government ever made was busting Mick and Robert Fraser [for marijuana possession]. They should have busted a dustman or a postman and then nobody would have wanted to smoke dope, but busting Mick was the biggest advertisement for dope ever.

Mick: Of course I copied everyone’s moves; you’ve got to learn from people. I first copied my grandmother and my mother and my cousins, and then I copied Little Richard . . . Some audiences you have to work really hard, and a lot of that stuff comes from seeing James Brown and people like him, because they work the audiences very hard, whereas other performers in white rock ‘n’ roll, especially English bands, don’t do that much.

Charlie: Mick never had a problem in front of audience. He’s the best frontman in the world – along with Michael Jackson (who was also as good at one time) – and that’s saying something.

Keith: We didn’t find it difficult to write pop songs, but it was very difficult . . . to write one for the Stones . . . After “Satisfaction,” which was a time of great triumph, a worldwide hit, Mick and I were sitting back in some motel room, in San Diego, if I remember rightly. We gave this big sigh of relief and it was exactly at that moment that there was a knock at the door and the phone started ringing and people wanted the next hit. It was a hard training ground, but if we had been allowed total artistic freedom, we probably wouldn’t have written half of those songs.

Charlie: There were quite a lot of drugs being taken at that time, but it was a very fashionable thing to do. It was quite common for musicians to take LSD and then bring a bottle of Jack Daniels on stage.

Keith: I had just started to hang out with Brian again . . . After we got busted, a trip to Morocco sounded good, but it didn’t work out that way – and things got ugly again. I pulled the old Bentley out, and Brian and Anita [Pallenberg] and myself sat in the back playing sounds. Brian fell ill and we had to put him in a hospital, so it was Anita and me in there. Of course, amazing things can happen in the back of a car – and they did. Brian finally caught up with us in London, and there was a tearful scene. That was the final nail in the coffin with me and Brian. He’d never forgive me for that and I don’t blame him, but, hell, sh- happens.

Charlie: Brian didn’t live long enough to do a lot of things he was talking about. . . He was incredibly young when he died, when I look back on it. I look at pictures of my wife and myself at Brian’s funeral and I just think, “Bloody hell.” We were so young.

Mick: Tina Turner was on [our 1969] tour, but I didn’t consciously copy any moves from her. She always says I did, but she’s a woman and the movement involved is totally different.

Charlie: The show at Altamont [at which a fan was stabbed to death] came right at the end of the tour. We came into Altamont by helicopter, got out and saw oceans of people completely out of it, mostly kids who were really bombed out and girls with hardly anything on. It was like Woodstock in a way – it was the fashion of the moment, but it was the end of the fashion.

Mick: The thing about [the Stones’ legendary record “Exile [on Main Street]” is that everyone loves it. but I don’t know why. There’s aren’t any real hits on it, apart from “Tumbling Dice.” And although it’s great to listen to, it isn’t that great when you try and play songs from it.

Keith: Mick and my friendship exists on the basis of a certain amount of space. I have a feeling that I’m not supposed to have any friend except him. He doesn’t have many close male friends apart from me, and he keeps me at a distance. . . Sometimes friends let you down, sometimes they don’t. But you take the chance, otherwise you get nothing at all. This is my personal opinion. Mick is very difficult to reach.

Excerpted from “According to the Rolling Stones,” edited by Dora Loewenstein and Philip Dodd,Consulting Editor Charlie Watts, published by Chronicle Books.